Since debut at MLS in 2009, Seattle Sounders has been among the most competitive men’s teams in North America, perennial candidates on all domestic fronts. They will now be tested at the Club World Cup.
Rave Green has one of the clearest identities of any MLS team and few league teams, see less squad turnover year by year.
The biggest question is whether your cohesion can overcome the league’s competitive ceiling, given the wage ceiling limitations and list that affect the ability of any MLS team to compete in a global arena.
Follow the Club World Cup in The Atletico This summer …
How good they are?
The club was founded in 1974 and played in several leagues since debut at NASL, but the modern era of Sounders began when they became a MLS expansion team in 2009.
They were undoubtedly the league’s most successful club in addition to its original members, winning MLS CUP in 2016 and 2019, ending as runner-up in 2017 and 2020, surpassing the regular season table in 2014 and overcoming US Open Cup on four occasions.
The Sounders celebrate the conquest of MLS Cup 2019 (Abbie Parr/Getty Images)
In October, the OPTA League classification model evaluated MLS as The ninth strongest men’s league in world footballfollowing only Brazil’s Series A among non -European circuits. Its model assigns a skill score for almost 13,500 domestic soccer teams on a scale from 0 to 100, where Zero is the most classified team in the world and 100 is the best. On May 27, Seattle ranks 151st in the world, with a score of 82.0-O fifth best at MLS and ahead of recently relegated to Premier League Southampton.
How did they arrive here?
Seattle lost MLS Cup playoffs only once since the premiere in 2009, not being able to do the post-season in 2022. They had a justifiable excuse, as they became the first MLS team to win the Concacaf Champions League in its modern era. They gave the league their first champion after the competition was dominated by the MX League, frustrating jumps in the final, drawing 2-2 during the first leg of Mexico City before an emphatic 3-0 triumph in the second hand at home.
This triumph punched his entry to two clubs from the club world, having traveled to the last pre-expansion installment in 2023. They left their first match against Al Ahly, but only began their preparations for the preseason a few weeks earlier. Now, in the middle of the fitness season and form, they expect a better showing at home.
What is their style of play?
For much of the past decade, the Sounders have leaned to a 4-2-3-1 with real defenders and creative inverted wings. But the last two years have seen the team replace veterans with younger alternatives that offer greater positional versatility.
As such, 2025 saw Seattle more often use a base 3-4-3, wide coming from a pair of wide medium. On both sides of the attacker are two average strikers who can pull the ropes in the half spaces.
No matter how training, the Sounders are a physical team. Only two sides of MLs gain more inauguration in the third attack (5.1 per game), while their 27.1 faults committed per game are also third in the league of 30 teams.
The result is a model that keeps silers in controlling various playing phases, producing a field inclination (ie, possession only considering attacking the thirds) of 59.2 %. In the league, the Sounders usually overcome their opponents. They also have several intersections capable of large areas and more than some central channel creators to throw balls or cutting passes.
Obviously, these are tactical characteristics of a team that can confidence the rhythm as one of the leading teams in the league. It will be fascinating to see how this model translates against the opposition of other continents.
Tell us about the coach …
Few coaches around the world are as synonymous with a team as Brian Schmetzer is with Seattle Sounders.
Coach Brian Schmetzer with a young fan (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
Born in Seattle, Schmetzer was a true two-way midfielder as a defensive steel player and an eye to create chances. His professional debut came with the Sounders Nasl iteration in 1980, while he got his first training role at the club in 2002, when they were at United Soccer League.
He assumed an assistant role when the club moved to MLS in 2009, delegating to the end and legendary Sigi Schmid before taking an initial intermediate base in the middle of 2016.
The change of training in the middle of the season led to the first MLS Cup title of the club, taking the “intermediate” modifier from Schmetzer’s position. He started a jump race that ended in the first title of the MLS Cup, as well as a almost decade of discord that is still underway.
On May 10, Schmetzer won his 131st victory in the regular season, the 10th more of any coach in League history.
“He keeps all with a high standard, but is also willing to allow the people he bring to work with his strengths, and he will question him about his decision, and this makes this individual think:” I’m really doing the right thing? “.
“And then, when you feel like you are, Schmetz then (puts confidence in you,” Assistant coach Freddy Juarez told the club’s website When Schmetzer reached his last milestone. “He takes the best of all.”
Surprisingly, despite all her success, Schmetzer was never named MLS coach of the year.
Who is the player of his star?
While Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan represented the United States at the 2022 World Cup, striker striker Albert Rusnak is the creative heart on Schmetzer side.
Tapped 37 times by Slovakia, although now now away from his last international call, the 30 -year -old is a comfortable ball operator. While most MLS’s most notable players (those under 35, anyway) are usually agile and Pacey, Rusnak breaks the mold, with the reading of the game and its technical insight.
Rusnak initially arrived at MLS in 2017 with Real Salt Lake, before joining Seattle as a free agent for the 2022 season. Since then, he has ranked fifth at MLS with 13 winning goals half of the 27 goals in the last three seasons.
And your rising star?
In recent years, the Sonders Academy has constantly produced half -central technically capable. The latest, Obed Vargas, can also be your best home product so far.
Initially, he left Alaska at age 15 to start his development seriously, needing only two years before securing a MLS contract. Now, 19, Vargas starts regularly in Schmetzer midfield and has accumulated 105 appearances for Sounders in all competitions, including a 63-minute change in the second leg of the Concacaf 2022 Champions League final.
Obed Vargas, the latest to emerge from the Sounders Productive Academy (Alika Jenner/Getty Images)
While he still fills various roles in midfield, given his youth versatility, Schmetzer’s change to 3-4-3 saw Vargas pass mainly from operating mainly as a defensive midfielder to play cash role. He embraced the freedom to move forward, leading all Sounders midfielders with a completion rate of 84.2 % in the final third.
Despite being born in the northern state of the United States, Vargas filed a unique change in FIFA to represent Mexico, his family’s inheritance nation. Vargas made his debut for El Tri in a 2024 friendly against USMNT. Given his considerable delay in performance, his eyes to a pass and his eagerness to defend, he is the only one to observe a future change to Europe.
What is the best corner of them?
One for the romantics in all of us, sports or not. Cradle of a 1969 success, popularized by Perry as, Seattle It can be absolutely stunning when sung by thousands when a match begins:
The blue skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle,
And the Green Green Green Hills, are in Seattle
Like a beautiful, growing, free and wild child
Full of hope and full of fears, full of laughter, full of tears (beers)
Full of dreams to last the years in Seattle … in Seattle!
Who are your biggest rivals at home?
The most organic rivalry MLS has to offer, the Sounders regional dispute with the portland timbers dates back to the origins of each club in the 1970s in NASL. Over the decades, these Cascadian rivals have accumulated 142 clashes, with Seattle registering 66 Portland 57 wins. Since moved to MLS, the woods have enjoyed a narrow 20-18 advantage, gaining leadership in the League’s specific balance in August 2022.
From 2015 to 2021, each season of MLs ended with one of the Sounders or Timbers representing the West MLS Cup conference; Portland won the first title in the region in 2015, while Sounders won twice in 2016 and 2019. Whenever these teams collide, there is a genuine animosity between players and coaches.
“It’s the best rivalry of MLS in my opinion,” Schmetzer said after his last confrontation in May. “It’s been a long and famous story. (Portland) likes to say they’re Soccer City USA, but I often disagree. We did things better than them.”
Tell us something strange and/or wonderful in the club
Although his homonymous series was clung to Drew Carey forever to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, the comedian was one of four initial investors when the club received a MLS expansion point in 2007.
Drew Carey in 2017 (Vaughn Ridley/Getty images)
He became only the first of many celebrity owners of this club, a trend that has since extended throughout the league. Few clubs around the world can combine the social cache of the current Seattle owners: among the notables are NFL Russell Wilson quarterback, pop singer Ciara, rapper Macklemore and Outfielder of the Hall of Fameball Ken Griffy Jr.
Why should a neutral fan biting to them?
Of the three MLS teams participating in this year’s World Cup, Seattle’s was by far the least complicated, not dependent on FIFA Finding an excuse to bring Lionel Messi to double or joining A state-of-the-art play-off to replace a disqualified team. Their presence is the culmination of a project of a decade in Schmetzer, the latest great game for a club well used to the spotlight.
And if you are a skeptical tournament, this can be your punk rock participant. Before a League match on June 1, his players passed the warmth before the match wearing T -shirts with a clear message: “Club World Cash Grab. ”
Who are they playing?
(All kicks et/bst)
- June 15 – Botafogo, 22: 00/3h (June 16)
- June 19 – Atletico Madrid, 18h/11pm
- June 23-Paris Saint-Germain, 15h/8pm
Note: All data obtained from Trmedia via StatsPerform (OPTA) before June 2, 2025.
(Upper photo: Steph Chambers/Getty Images; Design: Kelsea Petersen/The Atletico)
